Coatings have been used for hundreds of years for protection and to add visual appeal to products and structures. For example, houses are painted or stained in order to protect the underlying siding from the weather and also to add aesthetic qualities to the house. Similarly, automobiles are painted, sometimes with multiple purpose-made layers, to protect the metal body of the vehicle and also to add visual appeal to the vehicle.
Various coatings may have specific features and properties that are beneficial or desirable for certain uses. For example, different coatings can have different electrical conductive properties, different chemical reactivity properties, different hardness properties, different UV properties, and other different use-specific properties. Additionally, coatings may comprise unique visual features. For example, some automotive coatings comprise texture features that give the coating unique visual effects.
The ability to provide highly consistent coating compositions is an important aspect in many different coating markets. For example, it is desirable for decorative coatings to comprise consistent colors and visual features. Similarly, the ability to match previously applied coatings to available coating colors is important. For example, when fixing a scratch in a car's coating, it is desirable to match both the color and the texture of the original coating. The ability to match coatings requires both consistent coating compositions and tools for correctly identifying the target coating and/or identifying an acceptable composition to match the target coating.
Significant technical difficulties exist in providing complex coating and texture information to end users. For example, coating information involves large numbers of distinct measurements from different angles. The resulting datasets can be large and difficult to use in practice. As such, there is a need for technically sound methods and schemes for processing large coating datasets and presenting the resulting information to end users in consistent terms that are easy to use and understand.